and oh, poor atlas
by orpheus-under-starlight
Summary: "what's there to be faithful to? I am faithful / to you, darling. I say it to the paint." (Those days after release. Simon and Athena, and the shadows that linger.)
1. Chapter 1

Simon Blackquill walks free on December 21, 2027, and feels his mind bleeding at the edges in the face of a future he had never thought he would see.

Athena holds him close, in the lobby, his jacket clenched in her fists. She buries her head in the crook of his neck.

"Just barely," she says for everyone to hear. The way her fingers are shaking is only meant for him. "But I still made it."

Simon looks to the side, to the closed doors of the ruined courtroom, away from everyone, knowing she can hear the words of his heart but remembering (as if awakening to old memories of a life he hardly knew) that with Athena, actions are everything. Tentatively, unused to touch and so uncomfortable with the eyes of others on him that the tiniest part of him wants to drop everything and escape immediately, he wraps an arm around her in return. Her tears come a little faster, but Widget beeps out something happy-sounding that he barely hears above the beating of his heart.

It's enough.

"Yes," he tells her, something shellshocked in his voice that he knows everyone can hear, even as they hover between politely moving away and watching on in support of the girl he very nearly gave his life to save. The wildness of it all is still so new, and there are witnesses, and he has so many things to say to her that he doesn't know where to begin.

Athena. His lifeline.

After everything, he's done it. He's protected her, lived to see the evening of a day that had loomed so long in his memory, brought the man who had killed Metis to justice.

But he could not have swung his sword even half as effectively if it had not been for her unrelenting faith in him, however misguided, after all these long years.

He tries for humor: "I survived by the skin of my teeth, thanks to you."

It comes out too somber. He has forgotten how to blunt the edge of his blade, so long he has had need of it in its sharpest form, and he starts to kick himself when she sobs more. "Shame on you," she's blubbering, "Simon, for trying to throw your life away—"

_That _notion will simply not stand. Simon snakes his other arm around her and holds her tighter when she knocks one of her fists against his back and hopes she has it in her to listen to his heart right now, because he will never be able to fully explain what he means in words, masterful manipulator or no.

"It was never my intention," he says slowly, haltingly, a man who has not been honest in far too long finding his feet again, "to throw my life away. But some things in this world are more important than your own life."

"_Oh," _Athena whispers after a moment, registering, finally, the careful tension in his arms, the slight shake to them, the way he's half in pieces just like she is. But she is both the girl-that-was and the girl-that-is: her dewy eyes, red with tears, flash up to meet his in challenge. She doesn't relinquish her grip on him, only moving enough to look him in the eye, and the part of him capable of rational thought seems to have taken an absence of leave, because an incurable rush of fondness for the woman she has become sweeps through him at the determination on her face. _A therapy session, Prosecutor Blackquill, _mayhaps, or a little show for the people around them, or maybe she just wants to hear him say it. "Like what?"

At any other time, he might've teased her for it; badgered her into thinking out her own logic trails, forced her to connect the dots. As it is now, his sense of mischief has deserted him. The only real things in the world are the way her hands clench and unclench as they linger on his person; her eyes, clear and strong; the urgent truth written clear on both his heart and his mind. He sets his hands on her shoulders and meets her gaze. "My honor-bound duty to protect my mentor's most beloved treasure."

Her fingers twitch before she lets them fall to her sides. She smiles, something fractured lingering at the edges, lurking under the surface, but overall... whole. And, for the moment, intensely warm. "Thank you. Simon."

They have more to say to each other, but it will wait.

For now—

"Hey, I know how we should celebrate!" Athena yells at her coworkers, who have gracefully moved to the other side of the lobby. She slips her hand into his and refuses to let go, even when he gives a light, experimental tug. Simon subsides with a snort and the world feels a little less like it's tilting on its axis as Taka fluffs his feathers a bit.

Another day, he'll give her a hard time about it. When time itself isn't busily opening up a yawning portal in front of him, exposing him to a wide horizon he'd never dared to hope he would one day see.

Another day.

He says it to himself both when the Wright Anything Agency runs about the precinct retrieving all the friends and allies they seem to have made within a ten-year period and when night has fallen, Athena glued to his side somewhere in the middle of the long table they've pulled together using far too many picnic tables for the food park their large group migrates to, chattering up a storm and somehow acting as if taking him back with her to her apartment was something he ought to have just assumed was going to happen.

Whether or not he's actually going to get around to giving her a hard time over that one particular moment gets lost in the details. Simon breathes for the first time in seven years.

And, naturally, in the courtroom lobby, with Athena pulling him toward her coworkers, he's got to do something to regain equilibrium.

Phoenix Wright's expression when Simon counts himself in on Apollo's offer of _noodles on Mr. Wright's tab_—and the doubly-pained look he gets when Trucy Wright suggests extending an invitation to everyone—is all but priceless.

It's just a coincidence. Really.

_My apologies, Wright-dono,_ he thinks, not all that convincingly, not even to himself.

* * *

The holidays still exist. Simon finds himself absurdly baffled, more than anything else, at the way the world outside has lit itself up in cheer; less so at the way Athena's fingers often find a way to lace themselves through with his, the little rituals they develop to convince themselves and each other that they are still real. After the first night, where the celebration drags on into the early hours of the morning and everyone only very begrudgingly drifts off to return to their daily lives (and the sleep that requires), Athena mellows out when they are lingering in her apartment.

Simon has always preferred his personal space, but when it comes to Athena, and the newness of being near her in those private hours before going out to face the waking world, he finds himself... accepting. Especially as Taka has deemed Athena's apartment fit for habitation, and occasionally lets slip the fact that he is terribly fond of Athena—who, two days into their stay, absentmindedly hands the bird a small strip of raw meat as cooks them both dinner. She is telling Simon all about Trucy Wright's latest antics, and she seems to have completely missed the adoration in Taka's gaze at the casual gesture.

_Time goes on, _Simon tells himself. _Life goes on._

Athena is not as subtle about watching him as she thinks she is.

He wonders, for a bit, if he should get her anything for the holidays. The Wright Anything Agency has a tradition of celebrating Christmas Day and exchanging small gifts, but the Prosecutor's Office does too, and he finds himself unsure of how to go about purchasing a gift and getting it to her two days before Christmas short of going outdoors, to a physical store, in which case he might as well just go to the party at the Prosecutor's office and wait until online shipping schedules resemble something reasonable again. Simon only learns that these parties are one and the same when he voices the dilemma to Athena, who, hands on her hips, informs him that Edgeworth-dono always ends up at the Agency by the end of the night, anyways, and so does Prosecutor Gavin and Investigator Skye, and—

"Are you saying," Simon interrupts, dryly, sat quite comfortably on her couch in her living room with the background noise of some baking show she enjoys providing a backdrop for their conversation, "that I ought to go because the entire Prosecutor's Office has a collective attachment to Wright-dono and cannot keep their noses out of his business?"

Athena huffs, Widget flickering between red and yellow—a bit of offense, a bit of amusement—until it settles on an orange that matches her hair. She crosses her arms. "I mean, you didn't have to put it like _that."_

"I dislike crowds."

"You don't have to go."

_But if you did, it'd be a relief!_ Widget chirps in, and, face flaming, Athena claps her hands over it. Through the laced gap in her fingers, it's turned a steady pink.

Simon meets her eyes, slowly, gives her time to change the subject. She doesn't, only watches him just as intently as he's watching her. "And why might that be, I wonder?"

"I like having you around," Athena answers honestly. The intensity of her gaze never wavers. That their victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat has, it seems, inspired her to dispense with pleasantries and half-truths. "And I hope that reintroducing you to people in a controlled situation with known variables, where you can leave if you need to, will help you do what you need to do. You haven't gone outside at all."

"I interact with plenty of _unknown _variables in the courtroom." If he's honest, he doesn't really need to be fighting her on this. She's right. But something in him does need to voice his hesitations. At the same time as he craves his schedule being set for him, as it had been in prison, as it had been with Metis, having his freedom after so long has made him into something that desires an unfettered existence just enough to chafe at any suggestion of being controlled. Fool Bright—or, rather, the Phantom—had done enough of that for him, and the memory of electricity coursing through his veins, he can admit to himself, makes his fists clench a little tighter when he thinks of it.

Athena sighs, shrugs, flops on the couch and edges closer to him. Her hair spills over his dark turtleneck sweater when he pulls her closer and rests his arm on her shoulders, bright fire on a canvas of black, and Taka hops away from her with a disgruntled squawk. She glances up. "Oh—sorry, Taka! You can mess with my hair if you want—"

Taka makes a noise almost like a _preet _and instead opts to settle on Simon's other shoulder, giving them both a gimlet eye. He lets out a low bark of laughter and reaches up to give his bird a scritch.

"Anyways. I won't force you, Simon. If you need to take things slowly, you need to take things slowly." Her smile is serious, but achingly genuine. "I'm here for you, whatever you need that to look like."

_Yes, but what about what _you _need it to look like?_ Simon thinks, thinks of saying, but the careful set of her jaw at the shift in his expression tells him that if they're going to have that conversation in any sort of productive manner, it will have to happen later. This new life is still too raw for the both of them—his are just the most evident issues to be addressed. Relationships have a push and a pull, he well knows, and for all the vibrancy she has kindled in herself, much of what goes on underneath her surface is carefully-guarded and apportioned to very few.

Before the Wright Anything Agency, "very few" had been two people: Juniper Woods and himself.

He's willing to wager that number has only barely crept up to include Wright-dono and Justice, and only after the tumultuous events of their trial.

"I'll think about it," he says instead, pretending not to notice the way the line of her shoulders relaxes under his arm.

This does not mean Simon _forgets_ about it.

* * *

One time, between Christmas and the new year, in the dead of night, both of them having given up on sleep:

The kitchen table is cool under his bare elbows. His guilt bears in on him, hot and crushing. "I am... I apologize, Athena."

"What for?" She's staring listlessly at the light from the brewing coffee pot, the only bright thing in the darkness, but at his words she glances at him a shade too quickly to be casual. He's apologized multiple times already for multiple things—too many times, she's said—but even so.

Guilt is a difficult beast. Part of him wonders if he will ever fully slay it.

"I tried to drive you away." _I thought you would bring yourself to your own doom, after everything I sacrificed to keep you safe, and I do not regret the sacrifice, but the fear lingers in me. I certainly did not think you were cut out for the lawyer business when we first reunited._

"You were a huge jerk, yeah. Sometimes you made me miserable. In court especially."

He flinches despite himself. He had seen the need for it, to be ruthless and relentless even if she could not see for herself why he was doing what he was doing, and he had no possible way to know how things would eventually turn out. Even so, the verbal confirmation of something they both already know stings.

Athena reaches out. Her hand rests on his, light but warm. "But I hope," she says, somber, "I was able to show you what I'm capable of now, despite that. I'm not alone any more, Simon."

The only thing to light his face is the coffee pot, and it's not very good at that. Simon looks away anyways. Athena has grown beyond comprehension, and not just since she was a child seven years ago, walking around in his shadow.

"You've more than proven your capabilities," he mumbles. _You lack only sustained self-belief, which, for you, may only be brought about by time. And a chance to finally heal._

"What?" she asks, a cat's grin on her face, leaning in a little closer. His heart, completely without permission, skips a beat. "What did you say?"

Simon clears his throat. "I said, I believe the coffee is ready."

"Oh, you're right!" Athena feigns surprise, standing up to attend to their drinks, but the smile on her face tells him she's heard the words of his heart loud and clear. The air between them feels less heavy, less laden, and Simon quietly wonders at the difference time has made—how all the old things have become new, taken on different shapes in lighter colors. She hands him a mug printed with a photo of her and her aunt and uncle on it; he turns it, carefully examining what little he can in the early morning darkness. He has missed seven years of her life, after all.

They end up sitting together on her couch, watching old Steel Samurai runs he'd never gotten to see, and the way the dawn filters in from the glass door to her balcony feels like a gift.

* * *

Court returns to session on the first of January—crime does not stop for the celebration of the new year, after all—and so, too, do Athena and Simon return to work. He feels rather numb about the prospect of returning to normal life, but the lunch he and Athena had prepped together dangles loosely from his fingers, and the stiff winter breeze feels nearly bracing enough for him to take on the mantle of the Twisted Samurai once again.

Her fingers brush against his. "Hey."

Simon inclines his head in her direction, distracted from his own musings. She still looks sleepy, but the thermos of coffee clutched in her hand will chase that away soon enough.

"I'll see you later. Have a good day, okay?"

"Doubtful," he mutters, thinking of the case files Edgeworth-dono had sent him the previous evening, but Athena's fierce grin makes him want to bend. "Athena."

She tilts her head. "Yeah?"

"If we meet in court, I will not go easy on you." This goes beyond their past: just because the stakes are lower now doesn't mean he's going to let up. To practice his profession honorably is to give it his all.

"I wouldn't expect anything less," she says, the grin morphing into a confident smirk, and she gives him a thumbs up. "Don't worry about me, Simon! You and I both know that in court, getting to the truth takes total dedication. I care about that as much as you do!"

On a whim, he gives her that same sly smile she's had to face multiple times and watches the slight widening of her eyes with care. "Oh, did you mistake my meaning? Be careful not to let that resolve of yours waver, Cykes-dono, lest your blade bend like a reed in the winds."

"Just watch me, _Prosecutor Blackquill. _I'll show you how brightly my resolve burns!" She nearly shouts the last part, clearly excited by the prospect, drawing glances from a few passerby. They duck their heads at the happiness writ across her face, and no wonder.

Even under duress, Athena's brilliance reverberated like the moon on a clear night, steady and unyielding. Now, the greatest weight lifted off them both, her full radiance shines in her very being, a sun unto itself.

There is very little he would not trade for that smile to remain upon her face.

* * *

**I have been thinking about these two for LITERAL YEARS and I wrote this in three hours that seem like a haze the more I think about them. In this fic: introspection, the aftermath of trauma, and the world outside the tunnel. Enjoy, there's certainly more to come.**


	2. Chapter 2

Simon visits Aura on the fourth of January, days before her official court date, and for a very long moment, they simply sit and stare at each other through the plexiglass window. _Ask me why, Simon, _Aura's expression is daring him, and he knows well enough to know that if he does, she'll leap on him and lambaste him for his foolishness. The two of them have suffered these seven years, and Aura with a deepness and intensity that had always privately pained him.

What is there to say, really? He is free in part because she had taken a drastic course of action. It could have led to disaster, but in the end, it put their ghosts to rest. Doubting her intention to do exactly as she'd said she would with the hostages would be to doubt her dedication. She may have never taken to their parents' ideals in full, but she has her own form of it, and talking about it would likely result in the conversation ending prematurely.

That's not what he's here for. He's seated in the draftiest visitation room in the prison complex, suffering through their awkward silence-the truth hanging between them that they have forgotten how to talk to each other-for a _reason._

"Aura," Simon starts, and her mouth quirks. She always did know how to summon a sneer when it was most unnecessary. He sighs, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms. "Fine. Be that way."

"You're a fool, Simon Blackquill." His sister is altogether too serious when she says it.

Simon inclines his head. That, at least, is something he can agree with. "Yes."

"What, not going to argue?" She raises an eyebrow.

"It'd be even more foolish to argue with an eminently correct statement."

Aura looks at him, really looks at him, tracing the lines of his face and the look in his eyes. She's always known, perhaps better than anyone else currently living, where to look to find the truth of him. "Something's eating you."

"Has the Wright Anything Agency come by to visit yet?" Simon asks instead of elaborating. She would not be pleased to hear what he has to say on the subject of what's eating him, as she put it, and they both know it. Coming back into the prison complex, even simply to visit Aura, has him on edge—not because of the prisoners or Dope Gumshoe waiting in the room beyond, trying very hard to pretend that the walls are not especially thin, but because of the guards. They remember him.

It's... tiresome.

Aura leans back in her seat, mirroring him as she crosses her arms, and absurdly, Simon thinks that if Athena were to be bearing witness to this, she would find humor in that. "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. What's eating you?"

"Just the one burning question." Two can play at this game.

She tilts her head to the side. "I don't buy it, samurai boy."

"Do you really want to know?" Simon asks, leaning forward and meeting her gaze. Intimidation tactics never have and never will work on Aura Blackquill, but he'll be damned if he tells her that every day with Athena feels more natural than the last, and it's starting to scare him.

Even the thought of moving out, which the two of them had tentatively bandied about in December, seems to be a distant impossibility: apartments near work are at a premium, costing something hefty and unreasonable even with his built-up stipend, he does not fancy the process of finding a roommate to splint the rent with, Athena's apartment suits him _and_ Taka perfectly well, not to mention that Athena seems, between her loud outbursts at his needling and their considerably more subdued evenings, to remain fond of him... and he of her.

Which was something he'd never dreamed would remain true, or have any inkling of a deeper truth. Not in a million years. Not while Metis lived, and not while his thoughts lingered on Athena as he sat in his cell, hoping, praying she was rebuilding her life—that she was happy—that she'd forget all about the terrible events of the past, and grow into someone strong enough to withstand life's storms.

Granted, he did think he was going to be dead before he ever had the chance to see her again.

But then. But then she'd shown up in court, opposite him, her eyes brilliant and blazing, and somehow, even though the vast majority of the time he was winning, he knew deep inside he was fighting a losing battle. Athena has her issues, obviously, a fair chunk of them caused not just by the terrible events of UR-1 but the first trial, when she'd tried so desperately on the witness stand to tell everyone that his heart was speaking the truth, when he'd had to turn away from her to continue selling his charade. She does poorly when under fire—something more than a few people, including, unfortunately, himself, catch onto and pick on—but much like her mentor, she rises from the ashes.

Every time. Simon would have to be blind not to see it, and blinder still not to admire it, even if he does think that all the chaff and hand-wringing that comes with it is rather ridiculous and occasionally nerve-wracking. He will, of course, never admit it. Especially not to Athena.

"No," Aura says. "Tell me anyways."

Simon raises an eyebrow. "You're being awfully persistent."

"And when have I ever not been?" she asks.

He tilts his head. "Oh, I can think of a few instances..."

"Enough, Simon. I'm not going to ask again."

His eyes drift to the floor. It is a choice between telling her and the door, and things may be what they may, but she is still Aura and he is still Simon, and they, together, are making the choice to reforge the blade that was broken. The silence feels manifold, feels weighty, and he takes in a small breath. His heart pounds for no good reason. "Athena is very important to me."

Aura stills.

"I knew that," she says, casually, after a moment that is entirely too long to pass as casual in any shape or form. "You didn't need to tell me something the world already knows—"

"Aura." Simon barely recognizes his own voice. He barely recognizes himself, a free man, still operating under archaic strictures begun first as an homage to filial piety and then as a reason unto itself.

Her shoulders sag, and he hates to see it, hates to see the way she looks away from him. When she speaks, her voice is bitter. "What do you want me to say?"

_I know she didn't mean to, _he hears in the words she isn't saying, _but the girl took Metis from me, and even if she's innocent, I'm not kind enough to forgive her for it. Do you want me to look on her with kindness, Simon? Is that what you want? Is that why you're here?_

"Say whatever," Simon says, and it might sound cold to an outsider. "You asked. I told you."

"_Dammit,_ Simon."

He looks to the side. "I'm not going to apologize. Nor am I going to ask you to do anything, or behave differently. Your choices are your own."

"But you want me to choose." The look on her face could melt steel beams. It probably already has, somewhere.

"Would you believe me," Simon asks, more rhetorically than not, tipping his chair on its hind legs and looking up at the ceiling, "if I told you I didn't?"

"I wouldn't," she says, flatly.

They will do it the hard way, then.

"I understand that you have mourned Cykes-dono these past seven years. I know you took the hostages to have me exonerated. And I know that my conviction caused you to lose faith in not only the legal system, but Athena's importance—"

"—Because she is _not _as important as you are! You were _innocent _and _she_ didn't know the difference between a woman and a robot!" Aura bursts out, slamming her fists on the desk and leaning as far as the plexiglass will allow. "Damn it all, Simon, you were going to throw your life away over a reclusive eleven-year-old—"

"—And what else, exactly, would you have had me do?!" he shouts back, chair thumping back onto the ground, temper spiking despite himself. The guards look on warily. "She's Metis's girl, Aura, and she had no way of understanding what was happening precisely because her condition—which you were helping Metis research!—kept her from the outside world! Have you forgotten—?!"

Aura looks like she's about to slap him. He's sure if she could reach through the glass, she would. "I haven't forgotten a single thing about Metis since the day she died, Simon. I remember everything. The way she laughed—the way she _breathed—"_

She breaks off when her voice hitches, and she turns her face from him, hiding her eyes with her hand.

He breathes, in and out, very carefully, closing his eyes. When he thinks he trusts himself enough again, he speaks. "Whatever you have to say to Athena is yours. Obviously I would protect her from any harm I can imagine—but she... she is... an adult. She can take care of herself. And her will is strong."

"Are you telling me," Aura says quietly, pointedly, "or are you convincing yourself?"

"You witnessed that will of hers for yourself." Of _course _he's at least partially trying to convince himself. But Aura doesn't need to hear him say that, so he won't, because very few things truly belong to him after all this time and he finally has the luxury of keeping them to himself.

His sister watches him with eyes that are far too tired. He does not know her with her hair down. "She isn't just important to you. You'd do it all over again in a heartbeat if it meant her freedom."

"Yes." He hesitates. "But, Aura—" _I won't let it happen again._

"Bah, enough." Aura waves her hand and flops down into her seat, resting her arms on it as if she belongs there.

They fall silent. It lingers.

Simon's eyes eventually drift to the cracks in the concrete floor, which are different on this side of the glass, and he busies himself tracking the crevices—there is a dent in the wall that looks like someone once broke it in anger, dirt in the corners, scrubbed edges where someone has gone to great effort to make things look cleaner than they are.

"Well," Aura says eventually, "if the little princess is so important to you, what are you still doing here?"

"Pardon?" Simon peers up through his fringe and catches a glimpse of something nearly fond on her face, a split second before she pins him with that familiar caustic smirk. He did take many of his cues from her, he remembers now. They laugh the same way, fight the same way, take their coffee the same way. When he was a boy and Aura was finishing high school, he'd follow her everywhere he could; she had complained to no end, but he was never sent away. In a similar vein, he'd eventually followed her to the Space Center and its accompanying personnel.

It says something, he supposes, that throughout his time in prison, she never did stop visiting.

Aura rolls her eyes at him. "Brat. It's not like you to keep someone waiting."

_Go away already, _she might've said if she was well and truly sick of his company, like the few times he'd poked and prodded at her robotics setup in her room enough to incite her true ire. But she hasn't, and Simon suspects this is the kindest dismissal he'll receive, so he stands and gives her a low bow.

"Idiot. You know our parents didn't mean for you to take the samurai schtick as far as you did."

Simon rolls his shoulders and shrugs in response. "They will be in attendance at your trial, so I suspect you will have time to inform them of your opinions on that yourself."

"They'll _what?!" _she squawks, rocketing out of her chair, eyes wide for the first time since he walked through the door. "Simon! They're coming into town?"

He bows his head. "Indeed. I figured we both ought to prepare ourselves for the oncoming storm—I would have told you sooner, but I only heard of their travel itinerary from the Wright Anything Agency. Apparently, they contacted Wright-dono the same day I did—on your behalf."

"So that's why you made such a fuss about seeing me."

"No, that's not why." Simon pauses at her suspicious-yet-expectant expression and smirks right when she looks ready to hurry him up. "Taka insisted on a change of scenery. He has been an honorable friend and a worthy warrior at my side—"

"_Enough,"_ she groans, standing and walking away from the window without another word.

There are still more cracks and hollow ravines between them than not, but they have taken the first step, and ended the visit on a good note. As Simon steps out the gate of the prison complex, he breathes in. Then out.

_There is time,_ he reminds himself. _This will take time._

* * *

"Hey, Simon," Athena says out of the blue the night of January 7th, pensively staring into her case files, which are spread out across the kitchen table with far too much mess and far too little organization. Simon is heating some water in a kettle, leaning on the counter with some impatience. He glances over at her. She's running her fingers through her hair, a motion he's learned is only half-conscious and usually indicates she's either embarrassed or she's letting her guard down, and he thinks it may have grown longer since the first time he saw her again.

Simon tilts his head. "Do you require something?"

"Kind of." Her eyes flick to his and her brows furrow. "You don't have to answer."

"But whatever it is, you think it'd be helpful."

Athena frowns. "At the very least, I might be able to figure a few things out. Is that okay?"

"I am a prosecutor, and personally connected to the case," he reminds her, turning around and crossing his arms. For a moment he's bewildered by the way she tenses up, then—_ah, yes. We usually assume these positions in court. _

Well.

She'll have to get used to it being the norm again soon enough.

He keeps on, resting his elbows against the counter. It only feels _slightly_ ridiculous, which he'll count as a win. "So. How may I illuminate your enfeebled mind, Cykes-dono?"

"_Simon,"_ she complains, face scrunching, and he doesn't bother to hide the smirk on his face. "Okay. Sure. Here goes. Before... everything, was there any record in your family of a mental health diagnosis? Like—depression, or anxiety, or—"

"I know what a mental health diagnosis is, Athena." Simon wishes he had one of Taka's feathers on hand to chew on as he considers how best to approach the answer; while she looks a tad nervous, there's more relief in her than fear. Relief that he didn't take the question the wrong way? He isn't sure there is a right way to take that question. "As it happens... no. My parents are—" he _definitely _notices the widening of her eyes at that, "—not the most friendly toward such practices, unless something has changed since I last saw them."

They are older now, Simon realizes. When he sees them again, because there is no earthly way in which he can avoid them and not be in more trouble than he already is, their faces will be lined with age, even if his father still dyes his hair to match Aura's and their mother's. The Blackquill family, before UR-1, had not kept apart out of a lack of love. It was just... like him, he supposes, uncomfortably aware of himself for a moment. He speaks less in words and more through actions. Thus also with his honored mother and father.

Athena deflates. "See, that's something that frustrates me. Not your parents specifically, Simon, but if everyone were accepting, there'd be a greater likelihood that the people who need help the most could get to it..."

"Maybe so, maybe not. Not everyone who needs help seeks it even when the path is available to them." He rubs his chin, thinking for the first time in a week and a half about the personalities he encountered during his time behind bars. There had been several inmates who, had they had a chance to be diagnosed, would have then been able to receive the proper care and consideration needed to prop them up to one day walk on their own two feet again. One older man had looked at him with haunted eyes in the exercise yard—he'd been one of the few to talk to Simon after the show he'd put on the first few months, and to this day, Simon doesn't know exactly what his story had been.

Only that his name was Rasa, he had a well-trimmed beard, and he'd given Simon simple conversation in small moments, showing consideration for a man trying to paint himself as a monster as quickly and effectively as he possibly could.

_There is no tabula rasa, Blackquill, _Rasa had said in the exercise yard. The prison P.E. jumpsuit had been baggy on his frame, making him look thinner than he truly was. _I read a bit about psychology, back in the day. The person before this—_he'd gestured to the yard, the prison, the high-security cameras—_was not a blank slate, and the person during this is not, and the person after this won't be, either. All of this exists to press us down. But no matter how we pass through life, every stage of it changes us. We cannot return to who we were._

_It'll be true for you, too._

He had been unnerved, then, and too young to hide it quite so well as he can now. If he remembers correctly—which he thinks he does, given that the memories are not altogether unrecent—he had snapped something along the lines of _perhaps you assume too much, old man,_ a weak comeback. Those days had depended on selling the lie: fail at any juncture, and Metis's treasure might have been lost to him, despite everything.

"Simon?"

In the present, alive and perhaps not well, but something approaching it, Athena is peering at him with concern in her gaze—not worry, not exactly, but visibly enough to make him uncomfortable.

"Are you thinking of pursuing the path of mental incompetency as a defensive strategy?" he asks instead, to distract himself, and tilts his head. "You should know that those are shaky enough grounds—"

"I'm co-counsel, and psychology is my specialty," she interrupts before he gets going. It's ruthless, but more than that, it's unthinkingly ruthless, a rarity for Athena. He pauses, unperturbed, and lets her get her thoughts together. "At any rate—no, not now that you said that, and not in the way you said it either. I was just... thinking. About the time before. Even when Aura was happy, she was scared."

Simon stares despite himself, despite knowing Athena's sensitive hearing in and out. "Elaborate."

"Aura didn't like me very much, even then," Athena says, running her hand through her ponytail with a little more force, her eyes distant. Part of him wants to protest—that wasn't _exactly_ true, she was Metis's child, and Aura loved Metis—but the rest of him remembers his visit to the prison complex a few days previous, and he keeps his mouth shut. "I mostly kept out of her way, especially when she and Mom were working, but... I could hear her heart the few times I hung around. There was always a thread of discord underneath everything. Like she thought the bottom was going to fall out from under her at any moment, and nothing terrified her more."

He is silent as he processes the information. If they were in court, with its heightened stakes and its emotional highs and lows, the thought might've been something he would take to poorly; as it stands, in Athena's apartment with the kettle beginning to whistle and the only stakes are over who gets to watch which show at which time, all he can think is: _I didn't know._

Athena flinches. "You didn't—?"

She heard.

"Aura keeps her cards close to her chest," Simon tells her, and when that doesn't wipe the miserably guilty look off of Athena's face, he switches the kettle off and goes to her, sinking to his knees to meet her at eye-level where she sits. "Athena. You must never apologize for your abilities. You are..." _marvelous, _he thinks, _inimitable, you were making Metis proud from the moment you were born, she told me so,_ "...the inheritor of a gift. One that let you see to the heart of our own tragedy, and untangle it when all seemed lost."

"That was mostly Mr. Wright," she points out. Her voice is soft. Neither of them are especially soft people, on the surface.

Simon reaches out and clasps her hand in his, stilling the steady rhythm of her fingers through the strands of silken red hair, and he knows he doesn't imagine the way she swallows. "You're a psychologist," he admonishes, voice coming out gentle despite himself. "Neither he nor Justice would have figured it out without your analytical aid, Athena. Your abilities and the tools that help you make use of them were instrumental in convicting the Phantom."

"I-I guess that's true," Athena says, visible discomfort and embarrassment turning her face a deep shade of pink. She's left Widget in her bedroom, maybe to keep it from shouting out her thoughts at inopportune times, maybe to avoid her train of thought being derailed. Maybe the two are one and the same.

He takes in a breath, for a moment floundering, caught between moving closer and moving away, and then he remembers the tea he was going to make. Withdrawing slowly, setting her hand on her lap, he says as he stands, "All of that said, the chances of Aura consenting to a therapy session—"

"—are nil, especially if I'm the one giving it," Athena says with a dryness she doesn't often display. "Zip. Zilch. Nada. She'd rather accept harsh penalties."

Simon snorts. "Yes."

"Hey, since you're making tea, could you make me some too?" she asks, hopefully, but if she's trying to give him a wide-eyed, innocent stare, it isn't working, because he's already busily taking the kettle off the burner and pouring it into a cup. A _single _cup. With his preferred blend and nothing else.

_One, two, three..._

"_Simon! _C'mon!"

His shoulders are shaking in silent laughter when, suddenly, her arms snake around his sides to trap him in a vise grip. Her heartbeat is somewhere between his shoulderblades and mid-back; her hands meet in the middle of his chest, scrunching firmly into the rough fabric of his turtleneck sweater. He balks. "Athena—?! Unhand me!"

"You know, Simon, if I _really _wanted to, I could suplex you," she says, sweetly, and unaccountably, he can feel his own heart speed up.

To cover it, he sets the cup down on the counter and turns his face to look at her the best he can. Both his hair and her ponytail make it terribly difficult to see anything but one bright, mischievous blue eye, meeting his without fear. "Impossible."

"I did it to Apollo when we first met," she sing-songs, glee in her voice, and exactly no part of him doubts _that._ "So, you know, it's in your best interests to make me some tea, too. I don't think you want to spend the rest of the night with a bruise on your back from being hurled to the floor."

"Is that a threat, Cykes-dono?" he asks, voice low.

Athena chuckles nervously, noticing the tension in his shoulders, the stillness of his frame. "A-huh-huh-huh... m-maybe...?"

"Then perhaps," he says, a wild grin growing on his face, _finish what you start, Athena, _"you ought to have considered the fact that I still have use of my arms—an _elementary_ mistake, spring chickling—"

"Did you just call me a _spring chickling?"_ she yelps, and her distraction affords him all the time he needs: he turns in her grip and hefts her over his shoulder, moving forward in the same motion so she doesn't hit her head. She squawks angrily, sounding like Taka, and Simon, striding into the other room with his burden pounding her rather strong fists on his back, throws his head back and _laughs._

...At least, until she swings herself around his neck and brings them both crashing to the ground halfway to the couch, ending up on top of him somewhere in their tangle of limbs, pinning his wrists to the floor. "Surrender," she says, a grin not unlike his own on her face, and it only widens when he tests his constraints and finds that her strength does, indeed, hold, despite his best efforts. Somehow, like this, the faint scars from his manacles don't bother him as much.

He meets her eyes, a slow, lazy smile on his face. His heart flutters in his chest, lighter than it has been in eons, at the heat in her gaze. "Alright," he says, softly, laid out on the floor like she said she would be, only she's stretched across him to keep him there and the bruise is probably blossoming somewhere near his shoulderblades. "I yield, princess."

"Athena," she demands. _I have a name, I own it now, you'd better use it—_

Simon inclines his head as best he can. "Athena."

"So, tea?" she asks, hopeful.

His head thuds onto the floor, only barely cushioned by his thick hair and the ponytail keeping it bound in some semblance of order. "Only you," he grumbles, somewhere between breathlessness and the sensation of being laid flat on a spiritual level. Her grip slackens; he takes the opportunity to free himself and wrap his arms around her, bringing her head down to the crook of his neck, his nose nudging the juncture between her jaw and her ear. She shivers at the puff of breath he lets out, at the way his lips graze the skin of her neck when he speaks. "Don't you have a case to be preparing for?"

"Don't _you?" _she shoots back. He'd been assigned one just the other day after wrapping up the one from the first week, coincidentally in a manner that would prevent him from observing Aura's trial, and Edgeworth-dono had given him a rather bulky paper dossier to take home—_though I would recommend acquiring a smartphone soon, Blackquill. I suspect you'll find the features they have to offer quite useful—_that he had thumbed through the moment he'd arrived back at Athena's apartment... yesterday.

"Unlike some fools I could name, I'm in the habit of being prepared well before trial time."

"As it so happens, mister, I was just wrapping up. This trial matters to me, too," she says. "She was trying to save you. Even though she went too far, she was still trying to save you."

_I was trying to save you, too, _she very carefully does not say. _I would do for you what you did for me. _

Simon holds her closer, listens to the sound of their hearts beating. He closes his eyes. _We are, the three of us, far more unreasonable than we like to pretend we are. _"Just these last few days, and we will be on our way to spring blossoming once more."

"Simon?"

He says nothing. He doesn't know how to put it in words in a way that won't leave him stripped bare and vulnerable, and the world may be slowly stumbling back into something resembling a pace and a movement, but even with the fire simmering between them, he knows neither of them are ready yet. Athena, though, seems to understand what his heart is murmuring, because she sighs after a second and wriggles an arm out of his embrace to reach up and run her fingers through his hair.

"We made it," she reminds him. "We'll make it again. You'll see."

They stay there on the floor, half of them on the living room carpet and the other half on the linoleum tiles in the kitchen, for a very long time.

* * *

**This is quickly becoming a big project and the next few scenes have no good cutoff point, so here's a shorter bridge chapter with two long scenes. ****More to come; feedback appreciated!**

**On characterization-I think when their lives even out and they gain a sense of stability, Simon and Athena would probably grow more comfortable with taking the piss as part of the ebb and flow of their relationship. Given that these are early days after Turnabout for Tomorrow, though, and particulars like the exact length of Aura's sentence are still somewhat up in the air, I think they're both being very careful with each other. Neither wants to upset the balance or for the other to think that all that's happened between them somehow doesn't matter. (Naturally, this doesn't mean they're exactly on eggshells, either-it just takes time to create a new dynamic from something that burnt to the ground, and as psychology specialists, they're both keenly aware of that.)**


	3. Chapter 3

As things happen, Athena runs into Simon's parents before he can warn her that they're coming, not just to attend the trial, but to talk to Wright-dono on Aura's behalf. He has his new smartphone held to his ear in one hand and an umbrella in the other; keeping his rucksack close to his side in the driving rain is somewhat difficult, but he manages well enough. Athena is chattering on about something or the other, and then—

"_Oh,"_ she says, voice getting quiet.

"Athena?" he asks.

"_I, uh, Simon, uh. You might want to get to the Agency a little quicker."_

"I'm going as fast as I can," he huffs. Some right she has to complain when she'd suckered him into running her errands—not that he had other plans for the day aside from touching base with Wright-dono to ensure his perspective on Aura's actions were entirely understood for the court record. "This rain is absolutely miserable—"

"_Your parents are here, Simon."_

_Ah_.

Simon frowns. "I was... unaware that you were acquainted with them."

"_Are you kidding me? I'd know your face anywhere. You look just like your mother, just—masculine. Anyways, I think I'd better greet them properly."_

"Do not let them intimidate you," he says, feeling obligated to at least give her that, and she makes a vague noise of assent before hanging up. Simon pulls his phone away from his ear and looks at her caller ID and the blinking indicator that the call has ended. He slips the phone into his coat pocket.

After the conviction, he hadn't heard a word from the people who bore and raised him. Even now the only contact he's had was indirect: Phoenix Wright, sheepish, explaining that a Daichi and Chie Blackquill scheduled a telephone legal appointment the afternoon Simon had ventured over to the Agency (after he was sure Athena had been dragged into helping Trucy Wright with a magic show), and he didn't mean to pry, but was there any connection—?

_Simon,_ his mother had said through the tinny old law firm phone. _My son._

Wright-dono looked between Simon and the phone, nervous, as if Simon would destroy it with his iaijutsu for the grave misdemeanour of existing.

_I suspect that what we want is one and the same, Wright-dono,_ he told the man. _I will return another day to work out the details. Until then._

It wasn't running. Not exactly. It was more—a calculated retreat. That day he hadn't been in the frame of mind to reconnect, not after seven years of silence.

He sighs, shifting the umbrella and hurrying on. There's only one way to tell what his verdict from them will be.

* * *

Wright-dono appears at the door to let Simon in. There's a strange look on his face as he walks Simon to the definitely-not-a-repurposed-living-room, and after his initial greeting he makes very little conversation. Simon raises an eyebrow at him. Right on cue, he cracks like an egg. "I definitely understand a lot more about you now."

"Is that so?" It's interesting, he thinks, that Wright doesn't even pretend to be clueless about Simon's reasons for being here. He must've heard Athena on the phone.

"Yeah." Wright is quiet for a moment. "You have good folks."

That, Simon wasn't expecting. "They are... not intolerable," he manages, trying not to look as off-balance as he feels, but it's all a wash. When he opens the door into the living room, he actually takes a step back. Behind him, Wright lets out an _oof_ and stumbles back, but Simon ignores that.

His mother, looking the same as she ever did in a business blazer and slacks, her purple hair drawn back in a bun so tight Aura might've admired it, is seated on the same couch as a sobbing Athena, embracing the girl he'd sacrificed himself for as she might have embraced her own children in the rare days of their youth that they were simply inconsolable. Seated on the opposite couch is his father, watching the scene with compassion, and Simon's initial thought had been right: Daichi still dyes his hair, and he hardly combs it.

For some reason, the confirmation wrecks him.

The sound of his umbrella dropping from his suddenly nerveless fingers causes them all to look up.

"O-Oh, Simon—" Athena says between sobs, frantically wiping her tears from her face, making to stand up.

_I tried so hard to save you,_ Widget warbles. _I_ _should've done better! I should've been faster!_

_Work, dammit_, Simon reprimands his mouth, eyes wide. All that comes out is a worried: "...Athena?"

"Oh, _Simon_." She's heard something in his heart, and it makes her break into a fresh round of tears, and something in him throbs at the sound, which of course only makes her cry harder.

"It's true, then," Chie Blackquill says, gently rubbing Athena's back. "All this time, you were protecting her."

He opens his mouth, then closes it, then bends to pick up his umbrella. Looking at anyone is impossible, so he looks at the portrait on the wall instead, a lump in his throat. "Yes," he somehow manages to reply, the umbrella clenched tight in his hands. _Please understand_.

Simon has not truly begged for anything in his life, not when he was a child, not under Metis, not for the ravenous kangaroo court that had convicted him, not when he had been incarcerated, and certainly not after being freed. The closest he has come was when the man hovering awkwardly behind him had ferreted out his lies about UR-1. Here, Athena's desperate attempts to stop herself from sobbing filling the room, caught in limbo and not knowing what the two people who have known him the longest think of what he has become, he very nearly thinks he might get on his knees and plead for them to listen, if nothing else, whatever else they think—after all, the last time he had seen them in person, he had gotten into a rather vicious argument with them about his involvement in the Phantom case—

A warm hand lands on his shoulder.

"Simon." It's Daichi, his other hand sliding under his chin and tilting it up to meet his eyes like he's five again, caught in the dojo with their wooden practice swords. Daichi's fingers trace the scars beneath his eyelids, sorrow mingled with something beyond reckoning as he looks his son over. Simon has grown into a tall man, but his father still dwarfs him. "Son. We knew."

"_How?"_ Simon asks, his voice sharp and loud in the small, messy room. Not a word after seven years—but it makes sense, he realizes, and the bristling edge of gnarled emotion within him pauses, takes a step back, and watches carefully. He'd made it eminently clear to Aura that he didn't want visitors.

That hadn't stopped him from having plenty. Most of them to bawl him out.

Daichi rolls his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug. "Your hair may look like this now—" he reaches around and tugs Simon's long hair, "—but you still had your honor. Others may not have known where to look, but we did. And so did Aura."

"I managed to convince her," he protests, feebly, and his father almost looks as if he's going to laugh. "It was necessary."

"If you had managed to convince _Aura_ of your guilt at any point in time, she would never have spoken to you again. And she certainly wouldn't have explained the situation to us, halfway across the world. Come, sit. You look like you're about to fall over." Daichi guides him to the couches, and Simon goes, numb and unresisting.

Wright looks between the four of them, then again at Athena's tears and Simon's shell-shocked expression. "I'll go put on some tea," he says brightly. "Don't mind me."

The kitchen door nearly bangs shut. Athena heaves in one breath, and another, and another, until finally she is something resembling calm and all there is left to show for it is the redness of her eyes and her nose. Her cheeks still get splotchy and red when she's upset. "Sorry, sorry," she says with a watery laugh. "I just—it's—"

"There's no need to apologize," Chie says, patting her on the back with a warm, if small, smile. His mother is still sharp-eyed—age has not taken that from her yet—and though she withdraws from the hug, she keeps Athena's hand loosely in hers. Simon watches Athena's unconscious sigh of relief with something akin to the sensation of having been seen through before he'd even realized there was something to be seen through in the first place.

For his part, he is more certain than ever that he has no idea what to say. _I'm sorry?_ Not with witnesses present. _Why now?_ He knows the answer to that. _Look how old you've become?_

...Possibly, if he wanted a tongue-lashing from one or both parental units.

_Do I want that?_ Simon asks himself, less certain he knows the answer the more he thinks about it. Certainly the manipulative part of him is considering it, too used to working for his own harm or for the purpose of throwing others off the scent. As much as he logically knows it is no longer necessary to do so, the concept of vulnerability makes something in him want to throw his accursed bones right back into the slammer. Which is, itself, only partially a new problem: he had many acquaintances before UR-1, but very few friends. There had been so much to prove back then—to them, to the then-Head Prosecutor, to the professors who murmured about his youth and his insistence on involving psychology in his approach to prosecution...

The quiet settles in as he stares at the coffee table unseeingly. _I suppose it _would _have made my task more difficult if they had come calling._

"Hey, Simon," Athena says, and he looks up without thinking; her voice still warbles a bit, but she is looking at him with bright eyes, and his mother's gaze is warm and alight with... mischief? "Did you know your mom has baby pictures of you on her phone?"

Simon gives his mother a sharp look. "No... You would not have..."

"You were a boy once," his mother says blithely, completely unthreatened. "I like to remember that, sometimes."

"_Mother."_

She tilts her head with a sly smile. Relief lurks somewhere in the corners of her lips, but to be a Blackquill is to have a vested interest in keeping your deeper currents quiet. "I haven't heard that sound in far too long."

He makes a noise in his throat he had thought he'd never have cause to make again, hideously embarrassed, viscerally aware that one of the pictures his mother would have kept of him would almost certainly include the one with a drenched Aura chasing his five-year-old self through the house, with him in a frankly undignified state of undress. For some forsaken reason, it's always been one of her favorite photos. Athena is looking between them with something like awe, and he feels unveiled before her—unvarnished, even, any aura of mystery he might have once held dashed with the revelation of his childhood having been an extant thing. He had hardly thought about how easily he would fall back into the role of _son,_ and yet here he is, being put into place by his mother as if nothing had ever changed between them.

The Twisted Samurai could never.

Not entirely comfortable with the thought, nor with the half-formed creature he has become, Simon fishes Athena's case dossier out of his bag and proffers it to her across the table. He clears his throat. "At any rate, I was able to find this in that mess you call a desk. I almost thought the paper had formed into a living mass, and I would need to draw my blade to defeat it and rescue this folder."

"Hey, my desk is organized!" she protests, taking the dossier and clutching it to her chest. "It's _organized_ chaos. I know where everything is!"

"I highly doubt that, given your use of the word _chaos_ in the first place. You'll notice that I said no such thing."

She crosses her arms over the dossier. "Just because _you_ have a fancy filing system—"

"—that is _efficient, _and allows me to retrieve what I need _quickly—"_

"—doesn't mean _my_ system doesn't work for _me! _Anyways, I need to go put this away, like a _responsible_ person. I'll be right back. Thanks for bringing it to me, even if you did cast aspersions on my organization abilities." Athena is on her feet and bounding toward one of the many other doors leading out of the living room in an instant.

Simon rolls his eyes. "Don't forget it next time," he calls after her, and she says something in French—he thinks—that sounds highly uncomplimentary. The door swings shut behind her. When he looks at his parents, they're exchanging a furtive-looking glance that, altogether, is terribly suspicious. His eyes narrow as their attention returns to him. A cursory sweep of their expressions yields nothing he's willing to acknowledge. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," Chie says, too mildly. Sure enough, after a pause, she crosses her arms and leans back in her seat, her expression smoothing out into a careful neutrality that had always signaled danger in the past. "Metis Cykes. You did it for her?"

"I did it for both of them." The same part of him that had been willing to beg his parents to understand settles into a calm as he meets his mother's gaze evenly. This is what he had been expecting since the moment he learned they were coming into town—an interrogation. He knows how to deal with interrogations, even if they're being conducted in far more comfortable conditions than his first few rounds on the questionee's end of the table.

"And why is that?" Daichi asks.

_Because Athena couldn't have. Not Athena. Not to her own mother. Because I knew deep within, the moment I walked in the door and saw that dreadful sight, that Metis had died because of the trail I had set her on. Because Metis relied on me to get through to Athena when she could not, and Athena relied on me to have at least one uncomplicated positive presence in her life, and if I stood by and did nothing a girl's entire future would have been ruined for something that could not have possibly been her fault, and if it was her fault, I was willing to take the secret with me to my grave so that she might one day find peace. _

_Because the Phantom was still on the loose, and if anyone ever learned the circumstances of Metis's death, he might have gone after Athena, who had no clue about any of what we were doing. Because I had no proof, and I could only hope. _Simon rubs at his jaw, the memory of the utter fear in his heart at the sight of Athena's bloodstained face and the unquestioning swiftness with which he had covered up her involvement and spirited her away from the scene feeling at once both too near and too distant.

Does Athena even remember those hours after the fall? His bet would be on no, even after Wright had broken through whatever block she'd constructed over the worst of it.

_I was just going to fix Mommy, Simon. Where are you taking me?_

_Shhh._

_Simon, I wanna know..._

_We're going back up to your apartment, Athena. Be very quiet. Your mother is resting._

_But, she looked kind of broken—_

_Athena. I'll go back and help her. But I need to take you home first, like usual. Okay?_

_Really? You will? You'll help Mommy?_

_I'll do everything within my power to do so, yes._

_Wow... You really are like a modern-day samurai..._

Simon flinches from the memory, runs a ragged hand through his hair. His father's hand is resting lightly between his shoulderblades; when Simon straightens, Daichi drops it without comment. "I... I had to. Protect her, that is. I wouldn't allow any other outcome."

"Athena?" his mother asks, as if she ever needed the confirmation. He nods. She nods in return, slowly, thoughtfully. "She's an exceptional young woman. Strong. Honorable. She has taken her abilities and used them to alleviate the hardships of others."

"Yes. Despite what she has suffered," Daichi agrees.

It's not untrue, but there are cracks, and Athena still seems to labor under the misapprehension that she was under some kind of obligation to return and save him from his fate—something he certainly cannot allow to stand, especially when she seems to be using it to devalue her own accomplishments, but whether or not she'll listen when he finds a way to bring it up is another matter entirely. Just as antagonizing her in the courtroom and pretending not to know her had never ultimately stopped her from flinging her entire soul into her efforts to find a way to exonerate him, no amount of logic, reason, or pointed statements have thus far convinced her to let go of the notion that she owes him anything.

"That said... Simon." He straightens instinctively at the stern note in his mother's voice, different from her chiding and disciplinary tones of old. The woman facing him with hard eyes is Instructor Blackquill, master of the blade, and she may be nearly six inches shorter than him, thirty years his senior, but he knows that she could best him a thousand times over. "My son. Our son. We almost lost you."

"Yes," he acknowledges. There is no use in dressing up the truth.

"Not again." Her voice is steel, unwavering, unbending.

Simon bows his head, but before he can say a word, she is reaching across the table and drawing him into her arms, unheeding and most likely uncaring of the awkwardness of the position.

"Not again," she repeats, and it is, he thinks, more than he truly deserves.

* * *

Aura's trial will take place Monday, on the 10th, but before that there is the weekend, and Simon has opted to spend it going over his notes and research for the case he is to prosecute at the same time as his sister will be forced to put up with the combined antics of the Wright Anything Agency and Prosecutor Gavin. Athena had left before he woke Saturday—well. She had tried to leave before he woke up, but he was wide awake by the _first _time she crashed into the wall separating their rooms in the process of trying to put her running shoes on.

Sleep is still something that does not cooperate with him. But Athena worries enough, and he appreciates the time to himself, so often when he wakes two or three or four times in the night, he merely finds something to do to occupy his time—things like light, _quiet_ exercise, or like reading a book (more than a few legal treatises have debuted since 2020, but he's also taken to picking a selection of different genres from the library near the courthouse, where they had apparently never done anything to get his name and ID unregistered), or whatever work he brings home with him from the Prosecutor's Office.

As it happens, by the time Athena manages to collect herself and her things and exit the apartment without knocking a wall down, dawn is only just lightening into the early morning and he's running over the initial details of the case to make sure he's got his facts straight.

"Oh, that's a lark," he mutters as he finishes scanning the first document and stands to let Taka in through the window. "Hail, Taka. Has your hunt been victorious?"

Taka settles on his shoulder and pulls a strand of hair out of his head.

"I'll take that as a yes. You'll find this amusing, old friend—I've been assigned to prosecute a closed room murder mystery. Yes, that's right, straight out of an Agatha Christie novel... how antiquated! Ha! A fine thing for one such as myself to say, hmm?"

Whether or not his feathered friend genuinely understands him beyond the few commands he'd painstakingly trained him to do is up in the air, but he vaguely remembers having spoken to a young Taka this way, back when he'd been training him to sit on his shoulder on command. Not all things from the time before the Twisted Samurai necessarily need to be reclaimed—indeed, some of the errors of his youth are best left behind, such as that old, burning need to prove himself—but in this, at least, making a leisurely cup of tea and speaking to the bird as if he does understand, Simon can feel something clenched tight in his chest slowly unraveling in a process that had begun with Athena's refusal to stop holding his hand that very first day, after everything.

The case itself had appeared baffling at first glance, one that had initially been considered a suicide before Investigator Skye discovered a cleaned and sutured stab wound in the middle-aged victim's back, but investigation and a thorough reading of the suspect profiles revealed the most likely culprit: Peloni Graas, a late-thirties acupuncturist who had been hoodwinked in a shady deal with the victim and whose ties to certain dark underbellies well-known to the Prosecutor's Office are beginning to be very clear.

On his way back to his room, Simon happens to glance in the mirror Athena strategically placed near the living room window; anyone else might flinch at the twisted smile he finds on his own face, but at this point in his life it is the gentleness that somehow still exists within him that is surprising. No, he is almost certainly going to enjoy this bout in court.

There's a poignant sort of irony in prosecuting the sort of cases that weed out the very apparatus that had once convicted him.

As with all cultural shifts, the dark age of the law still lingers visibly in many corners of the legal realm. Edgeworth-dono, buried under a metric tonne of work already, had been forced to step in a few nights ago and root out an informant who had been obstructing the progress of the detectives on the case. It was easy enough to file it under the ongoing audit Edgeworth-dono has had the entire Prosecutor's Building going through, but sobering to see from the outside just how deep the corruption ran, even with the benefits entailed by his own release and Wright's re-institution as a respected defense attorney.

"In one way, that may be an aid to me," Simon tells Taka when he's settled back in his room, making a note on Graas's profile. He sips his tea—black, naturally, albeit not loose-leaf as he would usually prefer—and sets the cup on his desk. "I have... not a fresh perspective, but a slightly removed one. My opponent, on the other hand, one Dopha Nari, has allowed his blade to rust, and is neglecting his oaths. You and I must shoulder the work of discovering the truth of this case. I suspect there will be far more beneath the surface than anyone initially thought."

His morning passes slowly, in companionable silence with Taka, until Athena comes hurtling back into the apartment at 11:27 AM. "I set fire to the rain," she's singing as she tromps through the entrance, her shoes clattering on the floor, "watched it burn as I touch your face—oh! Right! Sorry, Simon!" she calls through his door.

"I've heard that song before, in passing," he mutters to himself under his breath as he stands and walks into the living room. Athena is seated on the floor with her back against the apartment door, rummaging through her sling bag for something she's clearly having trouble finding. Her hair is done up in a far more utilitarian ponytail than usual, most of it damp, and Widget is wound around her arm. It glows a happy green as she hums to herself.

Not for the first time, Simon realizes all over again the mad trick they have played on fate. She's here, alive and vibrant, and clearly in a good mood. She glances up at him with a smile. "Hey there, Mister Samurai. Something up?"

"Your hair," Simon says after a moment of internal panic. There's only so many times he can openly admire her determination before she catches on and never lets him hear the end of it. "You changed it."

"Now I definitely know something's weird. I'm just drying it," she informs him, pulling out her prize—another, smaller bag, which catches him off-guard, but she pulls her glove out of it and drops the pouch back in the sling bag. With an over-the-top flourish, she slides the glove on and wiggles her fingers at him. "How about it? Want me to look into your heart and see what's going on?"

"I'd sooner dip myself in battery acid." He seats himself on the couch, sinking into its cushions, but his affected disdain only makes Athena snort.

"Yeah, I guess we did that already."

"That we did." Taka, displeased by his master's abandonment of good posture—or so Simon imagines—flutters onto the perch Athena had specially ordered for him and begins to clean his feathers. For her part, Athena lets out a long breath, swinging her sling bag into the corner. Right as she settles onto the couch, he adds, casually, "And for which you continue to have my eternal gratitude."

Athena freezes. The look she gives him is half-exasperated, half-admiring. "Simon, that's not fair."

"Twisted Samurai," Simon counters, leaning in her direction as he lists off his titles. "Master manipulator. The Demon Prosecutor. Psychology specialist—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it!" she exclaims. In the course of her leaning backward, he has continued to lean forward; she thrusts her hands out in front of her to stop him, landing flat against his chest, but he's far closer than he'd expected to be permitted.

Fine by him. _Very_ fine by him. But he does have a point to make, and any exploration of even further closeness is somewhere down the road, when they're both standing a little steadier.

So Simon tilts his head. "Do you?"

"Uh, I'm pretty sure," she says, both eyebrows raising.

"Then why," he returns with care and precision, "do you continue on as if you are the debtor? You owe me nothing. Athena."

She frowns at him. "Simon... I think most everyone but you would probably agree that what you did for me was everything. _Listen_ for a second, you big lunk," she says, her hand curling into a fist, seizing his lapel and pulling him closer even as he begins to shake his head in disagreement. He's forced to throw his arms out on either side of her to avoid being pulled on top of her; this close, he can hear the faint tremor in her voice as she reaches with her other hand and buries her ungloved fingers in his hair. She lingers on the shock of white that he hasn't bothered to hide.

"We know all the details, better than anyone else in the world, and you traded your life away for mine and very nearly made it permanent. I fought so hard, but—" her voice hitches, "—I still nearly lost you. The dark age of the law, the fear I feel going into a courtroom, people like Professor Means, I... I pushed through. Because _you _were my reason. And even then, I nearly failed you."

"You're afraid. Even now," he says quietly, the realization hitting him like a ton of bricks. Foolish of him not to see it immediately—to interpret her concern as a psychological interest in reintegrating him into society. Especially when he himself has been acting in much the same mode, far more concerned about himself than about her. To mistake her cheer as a primary indicator of her wellbeing, when he knows the person beneath the mask, knows her silences and her thought patterns...

Fire and exuberance are part of who she is now, and the potential was always there for her to grow into it, but of course she would want to set others at ease. Whether that means forcing her biggest smile, like her mentor, or by congratulating Starbuck on his exoneration _as she was being taken to the Detention Center,_ or all the times she had tried to come visit him and had been refused, both by himself and by the prison administrator, all at a personal cost to herself, without mentioning it to anyone else, Athena is just as inclined to do things that he himself knows he is truly guilty of. It comes in a different shade, a lighter mode, and is given more freely than what he himself is willing to portion out, but she'd throw herself on the pyre all the same.

A long, shuddering exhale, and Athena is curling into him, reaching for him and keeping him close. "_Yes. _I'm afraid—that I'll wake up and it will all have been a dream, that even though you're here, you're not really real—"

"I'm here and I'm real. And I'll stay as long as you'll have me." Simon shifts, guiding them both into a more comfortable position on the couch, pressing her head into his neck.

She throws her arm across the expanse of him and lets out another breath, careful but coming in broken segments. "You don't hate me for not giving you a choice...?"

"Athena, if I wanted to leave, I would have done so the moment another option presented itself."

"Has another option presented itself?"

He huffs. "At least five different people offered to either lend me a place to stay or help me search for one, and extended the offer to stand past the night we celebrated the end of the case, if you recall. I said no to every one."

"Oh," she says. Then— "You really mean it."

"Of course I do." _Besides, if I had gone somewhere else, I'd have even less of an idea of what to do with myself than I do now. Athena—do you even know how you've helped me—_

Athena peers up at him with the strangest expression on her face. "And..." she starts, guarded, wary, but—almost hopeful? "And what I hear in your heart..."

"What do you hear?" he asks, said heart kicking into overdrive, and his voice sound to him as strange as her expression looks. All the world is in the careful shift of Athena against him as she raises herself up on her elbows and puts her hands on his shoulders.

"You—" She stops. Wets her lips. Keeps eye contact. "You love me."

He can scarcely speak, let alone nod, but he somehow manages. "Yes," he breathes.

"And you're not going anywhere."

"No. Not unless—you want me to?" All evidence stands to the contrary, but—

She shakes her head before he even finishes speaking. "Don't go, Simon. Please."

"I won't." He knows as he says it that it is nothing less than a vow.

The confirmation seems to settle something in her, and she laces her arms around him with a small, growing smile on her face. "I love you, too," she says, and her voice is hardly more than a whisper, she cards her fingers through his hair, "Simon—"

"We survived," he reminds her before the warmth in his chest wipes any other thought out of his mind, one arm around her waist still, the other resting on her ankles, "and you saved me. Believe in that, if nothing else, when your blade threatens to bend under pressure."

"I'll do my best," she says softly, brushing his fringe out of his eyes and resting her forehead against his.

They both know the fear doesn't just go away, that it isn't as simple as a magic phrase or keepsake to take the terror out of your bones once it's there and settled in.

Athena hesitates, and then— "Can I—?"

"Yes," he murmurs, a small smile quirking the edges of his lips. She kisses him, tentative and questing, growing more confident when he reciprocates.

_We will be alright, _Simon thinks, and his mind is blessedly silent.

Noon slips away under the January sun in a gentle blur of warm sensation and grey shadows and, always, Athena.


	4. Chapter 4

Court has adjoined with the conviction of Peloni Graas, and Simon is busy tidying his office in the Prosecutor's Building when a knock sounds at his door. He straightens. "Enter."

Miles Edgeworth strides through the door, a manila folder tucked under one arm. He surveys the office, eyes flicking over the dust pan Simon set down moments before, and then the neat stack of documents arranged on Simon's desk. "I must admit, I'm glad to see that at least one among our number cares for tidiness, Blackquill. I've seen some horrors in my time."

"A cluttered environment engenders a cluttered mind," Simon replies with a slight bow. "What can I do for you, Edgeworth-dono?"

"As it happens, quite a bit. With what you've already done, and the results of your session today, I thought you might find this interesting." Edgeworth takes a three-page stapled report out of the folder and proffers it to Simon. He waits until Simon has scanned the first page and looked up at him. "Interpol will be taking control from here. With the man himself having been brought to justice, they're now in a position to pursue those he worked with."

Without quite realizing it, Simon's fists have clenched on the paper; he forces himself to relax and lets a long exhale escape. This was what he'd been after even before UR-1: justice for the victims of the Phantom's crimes. "I... appreciate it. Kind of you to inform me in person, Edgeworth-dono."

"It's not all over for you." It's observation more than projection, and while part of him instinctively bristles at being seen, Edgeworth looks neither judgmental nor bleedingly compassionate.

So Simon shrugs. "Reintegration takes... some time. I will get used to the idea soon enough."

"Don't be in too much of a rush." Edgeworth smiles a bit when Simon gives him a sharp, questioning look. "It does take time. Your work is valuable, but your personal time will be just as valuable for regaining equilibrium."

"I wasn't aware you were in the habit of cosseting your charges."

"If you'd like to, you can think of it as ensuring that a good asset remains such."

Not that he hadn't known it before, but Edgeworth's sharp gaze reminds Simon that he is not the only one who can operate on the levels he has. He bows his head, keeping eye contact. "I will keep that in mind. Thank you for the advice."

"At any rate, I actually came here to extend an invitation. As per usual for cases where we work with the Wright Anything Agency..." He thumbs through the folder and pulls out a piece of office stationery with several bullet points written on it, and isn't it curious that Edgeworth doesn't look half as annoyed about that as he should? "...there's a lot to debrief on, and we've uncovered a great deal of information that requires careful analysis to be put to good use. If you have no other obligations, I would like you to join Prosecutor Gavin and myself for dinner to discuss both our findings from the Phantom and what investigation from your most recent case unveiled."

Simon raises an eyebrow. Not that he objects, but— "Prosecutor Gavin?"

"He's done a good deal of work in putting wrongs to rights, especially with regards to cases like Peloni's," is the response, and again Simon is being watched with intent.

"His legal record shines through," Simon acknowledges, disregarding every known loss to the Wright Anything Agency or those involved with them, because it's a known fact in the Prosecutor's Building that those hardly count. There are always extraordinary circumstances when Wright or his co-counsels are on the case. "I was, however, under the impression that he had a concert to prepare for."

That he actually gets a surprised look from his superior is only very slightly satisfying. He's mostly been focused on his own work, it's true, but having an actual office in the Prosecutor's Building as opposed to being forced to complete his work under the harsh glare of the prison lights and the sneers of his fellow inmates, not to mention Fool Bright's incessant chatter, is like entering into a paradise he'd never thought he'd see again, and it's actually driven him to make an effort to feel out the office.

_Know your friends that you may better discern the shape of your enemies,_ his mother had told him once while training. It was a simple enough saying, but as with much of his mother's wisdom, he had ignored that when he became dead-set upon the path of the Phantom.

By now, Simon has conveniently run into most of the other prosecutors under Edgeworth, and he suspects that if he hadn't been skulking about himself, they might have come looking. Indeed, his last encounter with Gavin had been prior to the weekend. Gavin paid a visit to his office as he was packing up to meet Athena for dinner, and their conversation—which probably would have looked like a duel to anyone outside the building—is the source of his knowledge for Gavin's schedule, which he otherwise would have no real clue or concern about.

"The venue is booked until the 16th, as far as I'm aware," Edgeworth is saying.

"I see." Simon lets a beat go by, not intending to make the man who has given him a chance wait too long, but finding himself somewhat torn between two options. Athena had invited him via text message to eat with her, Justice, and the Wrights, celebrating their successful efforts to secure a reduced sentence for Aura, but he also finds himself chomping at the bit to have some kind of continued investment in reinventing the legal system, rather than merely being an observer of and accessory to it. There is also the matter of what he'll choose to reveal to others. In the end, he picks up the dust pan and returns it to its proper place in the small cleaning closet. "Give me a few minutes to call and inform Cykes-dono of a change in plans, and I will be ready to go."

Edgeworth hesitates.

Simon shakes his head before he can speak. Whether it's a clarifying question or not, he doesn't particularly want to know what anyone has to say on the subject of him and Athena—or, really, what anyone thinks. "She will understand. It's nothing out of the ordinary, and each of us want the last vestiges of that dark age swept away."

"Very well." Some new light of understanding has entered his superior's eyes that he will, he supposes, have to live with. "Gavin and I will await you in the lobby on the ground floor."

* * *

January winds on, day by day. Simon's parents return to England, but not before having dinner with him and Athena in their apartment. Chie takes to Taka immediately, nodding approvingly at the bird's candor and hand-selected kerchief—she even permits Simon to show her the intricacies of caring for him as Daichi and Athena watch on with apprehensive expressions, opting to stick in the kitchen instead of joining them in the living room.

"He has been a most excellent companion," Simon says, giving a preening Taka a scritch. _Enjoy the attention for now, friend. I suspect few others will treat you with the respect you deserve._

Chie is smiling when he looks up. "Continue to do so," she tells Taka. "Your honor shines through, and your strength is invaluable."

"I've felt those talons one too many times to disagree," Athena mutters to Daichi, who makes an understanding noise. "But somehow..."

"...It still feels off," Daichi finishes.

Athena lets out a long sigh and ladles a helping of curry onto one of four plates waiting to be filled. "Yeah."

Dinner goes reasonably well, meaning Simon manages to wrangle his acidic tongue effectively enough that he avoids starting a fight, Athena finds a genuine thread of connection between herself and his parents (she had to have learned martial arts from _somewhere,_ he realizes belatedly), and when he sees them to their rented car, they only exchange a single one of those wordless glances they have always communicated in.

"Simon," Daichi says, his eyes flicking from Simon's hair to his face. Memorizing it? Refamiliarizing himself? Simon can't know unless he teases the reason out, and there's not much time for that. "We had one other reason for coming to visit."

Simon inclines his head, just barely, and braces himself. If it is about himself and Athena—

"We're thinking of moving back."

"...It is somewhat dangerous here," Simon says, dryly, not fool enough to feel relief quite yet. "A truly ridiculous amount of extraordinary cases make their way to the door of the Prosecutor's Building. You would forsake the peace of your abode to come here?"

Chie smirks at him. He is beset by the uncomfortable reminder that not all of his in-court arsenal was developed of his own volition. "Ah, son. It is good to know you still feel concern for us. As it so happens, we have another opportunity to open another dojo here in the city. Establishing another one seems like a beneficial option. This city is in sore need of more qualified and certified practitioners of our discipline, or so interested parties have said."

"Whatever ends up happening will take time, naturally. A year, two years—but we are ready for a change of pace." Daichi gives Chie a fond look.

"And," his mother says, the slyness leaking into her tone, "we would like to get to know Athena better."

"I am sure she would enjoy the opportunity," Simon returns evenly. He _knew _it was coming.

Of course, there exist all the unspoken reasons behind his parents choosing to pack up their lives and move continents yet again: serial wanderlust, a desire to reconnect with their children, the genuine recognition of all that had come before, and quieter reasons still that Simon cannot pretend to know.

But these are old patterns they are following, the three of them fumbling for normalcy in a world that is so far beyond normal that spirit mediums are an accepted way to gather evidence in murder cases (something Edgeworth-dono has officially referred to as the "Fey protocol", whatever that means).

_There is no tabula rasa, Blackquill._

Perhaps it is also thus with matters of the heart.

Chie's eyes, the eyes he inherited, gleam with something like approval. "She is a bright star in her chosen profession, and knowledgeable—and _compassionate_—on other matters, to boot. Meeting her was a pleasure."

"It would be best to return to your hotel before it gets to be too late, Mother. You have an early morning and a long flight in store." Simon bows low, willing the faint flush he feels back down. "May you be in continued health and—"

Daichi makes a noise and pulls him into a hug. "Enough, son."

"Enough _what—" _

Chie's arms encircle him as well. Simon shuts his mouth.

* * *

When he returns Athena is curled up on the couch, something listless in the splay of her hair on the dark grey fabric and the expression on her face as she watches a rerun of a cooking show that was old when he was young; he thinks he remembers this age-old mood of hers well enough, and he shuts the door, takes off his shoes, and goes to make tea in the kitchen. In short order, two mugs wait on the counter, the kettle is set to boil, and the chamomile blend she favors in the evenings—apparently meant to encourage sleep through natural means—sits near it, the soft blue color of its container blending in with the pale yellow tiles and the darker blue cabinets.

Mothers are a sore spot for Athena. Some part of him suspects, or maybe cynically expects, that this will always be the case. Of all their difficulties, it is perhaps the most understandable and accessible, if not the one she'd most want others to pick up on.

The kettle dings. He prepares the tea and lets it steep. By the time he's returned to the living room, she's sat up a bit and tucked her feet into one of the couch cushions, making room for him. He passes her mug to her.

"Thanks," she says, not quite looking at him, Widget switched off on her chest.

Simon nods and doesn't object when she wedges her feet under his leg. The man on the television is raving about some hole-in-the-wall diner in a small town in Texas; the owner stands next to him awkwardly, looking every inch the Western cowboy he's purported to be in a wide hat and thick boots, uncomfortable under the gaze of the camera, and the scene cuts to one of the cooks showing the presenter how to prepare their special double-decker aioli barbecue burger. It is thoroughly American in a way that has never quite failed to disorient him.

"Your mother has been very kind to me," Athena says after a long while.

He takes a sip of his tea as he considers what to say. "She thinks highly of you."

"I... appreciate that? I think?" She frowns and moves the mug around in her hands. "I do appreciate it. But..."

The silence lingers. Saying it for herself, naming it, is probably not what she wants, judging by the sneaky, assessing side-eye she gives him when he says nothing. He could reassure her that Metis loved her, remind her that Metis's research had been for her, the only form of love a complex and ultimately more demonstrative than vocal woman had known how to express for her daughter. But he has done that already, and it has only been a bandage to a wound that existed long before Metis's death—and all that went unsaid and unresolved with it—had ripped it wide open and made it deeper.

He had been drawn to Metis as a colleague and a mentor in part because of her talent for seeing straight to the heart of most any given situation. Where Aura fell hard for Metis's diamond-sharp, analytical mind and the deep waters that ran beneath it, Simon saw a valuable ally in his fight for justice, and, in time, a friend and a teacher. One who took no offense at the intensity with which he approached his chosen profession.

That had not changed Metis's unfortunate inability to reach Athena, who, even quiet and sickly, was far more emotive and affectionate, and needed more than her mother's own issues permitted her to give. Athena had only seen the long hours spent away from her in a dangerous laboratory children were only allowed in when an adult was on-hand to supervise, the heavy weight of the special headphones, and—Simon suspects, but will take with him to his grave—all the time spent with Aura instead of her.

The lies he'd told on the witness stand in his most desperate hour had not been difficult to summon up, not exactly, not next to everything else he'd already said. When Athena had to undergo testing so that Metis could tweak the headphones and gather data on her abilities, Metis was functioning less as her mother and more as the scientist she was. Athena would practically fly to him after those sessions, begging to be taken outside to the pond near GYAXA or to somewhere else in the building—_I don't want to stay here, _she'd insist, heedless of (or perhaps deliberately ignoring) her mother's troubled face behind her. _I'm hungry._

Athena, in the present, is more likely to pick a fight than she is to run away, but formative responses to pain are not easy to disentangle. Her head falls back on the couch; she addresses her words to the ceiling. "It made me think about Mom again. And it still hurts. Even though she left me behind long before she passed."

"Did she?" Simon asks, not a judgment or an assertion or a reminder. He can certainly see where she's coming from, even though he disagrees.

Her fingers drift to her earring. She traces the curve of the moon rock with her thumb, and when she turns to look at him, he sees unhappiness in the set of her jaw. "It's selfish, but... sometimes I think that a bunch of objects didn't make up for her not being there. And she isn't alive to answer to that, so I have to find my own answer. I have to, but I shouldn't have to. Does that make sense?"

"I think," he says, after a moment of consideration, "it makes more sense than the rest of the madness we've involved ourselves in."

"Yeah, I heard about your case." She ignores the sharp look of _from who? _that he gives her and takes a hearty gulp of tea. At least half of her sudden cheer is forced, but enough of it isn't. As she regards him with her own little grin, her eyes roving his face, it settles more naturally onto her brows, her lips, the curve of her cheeks. "Almost sounds like a Wright special."

Simon rolls his eyes. "I hate to ask, given that I'm nearly certain I know, but..."

"What is a Wright special? An impossible-looking murder with an incredibly convoluted series of coincidences and hidden connections, of course. Sometimes even spanning continents! Or so I hear. Mr. Wright finds himself called on by people in trouble all over, from Kurain Village to Cohdopia... though apparently Mr. Edgeworth was more involved with those cases, and just called Mr. Wright about them for some reason. Did you ever prosecute internationally?" She takes another, more moderate sip.

"It has been some time since I was last abroad." He finishes off his tea and sets it to the side, crossing one leg over the other and stretching. His back makes a cracking noise. "But not for work. And beyond England, I've only been to France."

Athena's eyes widen. "I studied there!"

"Did you, now? I had heard you'd gone to Europe, but never where."

She quiets. "They didn't tell you?"

"_They_ were the prison administrators, and they were more than happy to tell me that you were doing well in spite of me and my damned actions, but no more than that." Simon frowns, trying to figure out why she looks crestfallen all of the sudden. "Athena—?"

"So you never got my letters," she says.

_Letters?_ Simon stares.

"I'll take that as a no... I wrote you every six months. Whenever anything got to be too much, when I started to remember things, when I wondered about how you were doing... I sat down and wrote to you." She cards her fingers through her hair, gaze drifting somewhere to the left of him. "Mailed them off every time, even though you never replied. I know why now, I guess."

"I can't promise I would have responded if I had known."

Athena smiles at him. "I don't need that from you now. Honestly, I'm not sure I did then, either. It's just a question I'd had for a long time... it's funny, how life works sometimes."

"Yes, it is," he says, a fool, she is here and she is real and alive and beautiful, and though he will only admit it to himself, she had been the one to save him. _Let me look into your heart,_ she had said, that brilliant light in her eyes that she only gets when she doesn't realize she's doing it. He leans over, leans closer. "Athena."

"Yeah?"

"May I?"

She narrows her eyes. "Duh."

He pulls her empty mug out of her hands and sets it on the side table along with his.

"I _knew_ it! _Simon!" _At her indignant mien, Simon starts laughing. Athena lunges for him. He manages to catch her calves before she can fully move her feet from beneath him, and, as a result, bears the full breadth of her body landing on top of his, which he takes with a grunt. She pins his arms above his head and does a double-take when she spots the grin on his face. "Are you feeling okay?"

"What? I'm in perfect health." It isn't exactly true, but his sleep problems are recurring.

"You—yipes!" He surges upwards. With her hold broken, she flails for a second.

That's just a second too long. Simon seizes one arm and uses his free hand to support her lower back as he bends and she goes with him. "You know, Athena, my powers of persuasion are just as strong as ever—"

"—Are you going to teach me?" she demands, something fierce breaking through the blunt edge of her fiery exasperation. Like this, he can feel her heat against him, every line and contour, and the way she shifts and breathes, her chest brushing his, sends a wild jolt of liquid lightning through his veins. His heart thuds in his chest. He has not known this sensation. Not before her.

"You wish," he informs her. "I'll pay for all of your lunch before that happens."

Her free fingers curl into his jacket. "Implying that it _will _happen at some point."

"I'd have to pay for your lunch first, and I don't intend to do that any time soon."

"We'll see about that, Simon Blackquill," Athena says, smirking, _how grand your ambitions are, how glorious, but your confidence is completely unwarranted, Athena, _and before he can come up with a rebuttal, before he can spit it out, she's captured his lips with hers.

There is something about Athena that Simon thinks he could gladly, happily drown in. For every moment she doubts herself, there is a rallying defiance in her that refuses to be defeated; every time they move, every way in which they adjust course, she leads and sets him alight all over again. He gives as good as he gets, of course, slowly mapping out every sigh, every quiet, needy noise, every movement that infuses itself into their souls, finding new heights he had never before dreamed of.

"I'll show you the world," Athena is saying in a haze, somewhere at the intersection of his jaw and his neck, the sound of her voice vibrating against his skin. "I'll show you all the things—Simon—"

"_All _the things?" Through the fog, he still somehow spots it. Athena makes an annoyed noise and then her lips are on his neck again, and he forgets what, exactly, he was going to point out.

* * *

"Hey."

"Yes, Wright-dono?" Simon will do the man who secured his release the favor of not asking why he happens to be passing through the Prosecutor's Office from the top floor. It looks enough like business as usual for the rest of the prosecutors currently in the office printing area, at any rate, and picking at that lingering thread of curiosity has no real benefit at this time.

Wright's hands are in his pockets. He's dressed as sharp as ever, but the danger that lurks beneath his surface is lingering closer to his eyes today. "Athena's been looking happier ever since you were released, you know."

"I'd imagine so. It has lifted a weight off us both... and allowed us to move forward, after so long. Thank you again for your efforts." He tucks the papers he's just printed off beneath his arm and bows lightly.

"You're welcome... but that's not what I meant, and I think you probably know it."

There it is.

That doesn't mean that he has to make it easy for the man. He turns back to the printer, retrieving the rest of his documents, and takes his time putting them together. "Then what did you mean, hmm, Wright-dono?"

"I meant that it would be a shame if something happened to make her lose that happiness." Wright's eyes are as serious as he's ever seen them; he stands nearly a foot shorter than Simon, and he is beginning to form wrinkles, but his smile would intimidate lesser men. "Take care of her, Blackquill."

Simon turns and regards him, crossing his arms. "I don't need you to tell me that."

To his surprise, Wright actually _laughs. _"No, I suspect not. But I had to say it anyways. Athena isn't just one of my precious students... she's become a friend. To Apollo, to Trucy, and to me."

"Hm. I'll keep that in mind."

"I know you will," Wright says, his smile becoming more genuine at the edges. "After all, you're a pretty loyal guy, aren't you?"

He keeps himself from sighing, but just barely. _Enough of this. _"Are you insinuating something, or did you really have all day to stand around and bandy about accusations? Does that little traffic go through the Wright Anything Agency?"

"...Erp."

"Mm, I see. See that your blade is growing dull with lack of use!" As he makes to use his iaijutsu, Wright yelps and covers his hair; after a moment of silence, Simon straightens and regards the man with a smirk.

"...H-huh?"

"You'd best be moving along," Simon advises him. "All of us must work."

Wright laughs with an audible tinge of nervousness, this time, and he tries not to feel too satisfied. "Ha! I guess you're right. I've got some work of my own to get back to, and subordinates to look after... take care, Blackquill."

"You as well," he says pleasantly, smirking when Wright shudders and takes his leave.

Only when he has settled back in his office does he happen to glance at the calendar on his desk and notice the date. _January 30th. _Simon exhales, a long, weighty sigh, and sits back in his chair. He has been a free man for a little over a month, and he'd hardly noticed in all the rush and the blurry business of returning to something resembling a normal life—even if that life involves prosecuting impossible murder cases, being drawn into a circle of defense attorneys that somehow seem to charm every prosecutor they go up against, and avoiding all manner of zany incidents related to all of that nonsense.

Any day now, he very nearly expects to be struck down by lightning for the good fortune he has had to not only survive but also have a chance at something resembling happiness. He knows well enough that he is not the kindest man, nor is he gracious or giving, and he has been hardened and sharpened into something far more likely to go for the jugular in any given situation than to step back and consider mercy.

But he is not _only_ that. A month and some is not an eternity—barely feels like a blip—but it is time enough to put distance between Simon, whoever that is, and the Twisted Samurai, who is, at least to him, an incredibly known quantity.

His phone buzzes. With only a modicum of annoyance, he fishes it out of his pocket and looks at the on-screen notification that pops up. Athena has sent him a text message.

_Today | 5:46 PM_

_Athena_

_can u pick up some eggs and butter on the way back? i was gonna bring supplies to the office tmrw bc trucy wants to bake, but i just realized we used up the last of it... thnks simon! i'll pay u back! 3_

_Today | 5:54 PM_

_Athena_

_be safe on your way home, okay?_

Simon finds himself smiling as he taps out a quick reply. _Yes, I'll retrieve your groceries for you, so long as you do indeed pay me back. Be more concerned about yourself. I hear hawk sightings are on the rise, and as we both know, hawks flock to my person in friendship, not animosity._

Just moments after sending it, her icon pops up on his screen again. _you're unbelievable! just come home, you great big jerk_

_I will._

He lets the screen go dark and sits for a moment before he goes about packing up what work he needs to take home.

"There will be time. There is time," he says to the quiet room, and the words, spoken aloud, seem weighty and real, resonating with something in his soul that has finally begun to look forward to rising with the day.

* * *

**It's been a wild ride. I can say that when I started writing this I didn't _expect_ to end up with a whole 18k of Simon's internal musings written in the span of just a week and a day, but honestly, this has been the most productive I've been in a good long while and I'm very pleased to have gone on this journey. It doesn't end here, though! I've already got plans for a second fic in the same series and 'verse, which will not be written at this sort of breakneck pace but will hopefully be similarly contained somewhere below 40k words. **

**My love for Cykesquill runs deep. I've been thinking about these two for ages-they deserve a soft epilogue, and I'm so, so happy I can explore what that might look like. **


End file.
